Current & emerging technologies

How was every one's weekend? Personally, I was so glad that I didn't have to wake up at 8am on Saturday morning. This summer semester course may not be overly intensive, as say a third year Psychology subject, but having to wake up at 8am everyday last week was certainly a chore. I'm supposed to be having holidays now!!! Anyway, only another week to go...

Today's lecture was pretty interesting. To start off, Adam showed us a quick video of a Dove advertisement, which played on the concept of the reality of "beauty". It showed how a person can be transformed from simple looking to an absolute stunner, with the help of makeup and lots of tweaking in Photoshop. I knew the so called "models" in advertisements were not au natural, but it was still pretty cool to see how much work is actually done on them.

We talked about a range of contemporary technologies that may either have been out for a while and have recently undergone dramatic changes, or new emerging technologies that are becoming increasingly popular. Some of these include: instant messaging (ie. MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, ICQ), portable audio/podcasting (ie. mp3), peer-to-peer/file sharing (ie. limewire, bit torrents) and VoIP. Majority of us still use these technologies for recreational purposes, however, they are continually becoming popular in business settings too.

Adam mentioned something that I thought was hilarious... The use of bluetooth headsets today. You know how when you're just walking along the streets and someone suddenly starts talking and you think they're either talking to you or that they're crazy? I get that so often! Especially with the size of these bluetooth headsets getting smaller and smaller. Or sometimes you're driving and stop at the lights, you turn to the car next to you and they look like they're talking to themselves.

Another topic I could totally relate to was people's addictions to new communication technologies nowadays. I will admit that I'm one of those people who has their mobile phones within an arm's length at ALL TIMES. It always has to be near me where I can see it, otherwise I'll feel very uncomfortable. Even when I'm working and don't have my phone with me, I'll have to constantly check it to see if I had any missed calls or received any SMS/MMS. I remember last semester, there was one day when I overslept and was running late for class. For some reason, I left my mobile on the kitchen bench and didn't realise that I didn't have it with me till I got to uni when I wanted to get it out to turn it on silent. I turned my bag inside out and it wasn't there, and immediately I started to panic. What if I'd dropped it along the way and some one's picked it up? What if I left it at the cafe? What would I do if I lost all my contacts? For the rest of the tute, I could not concentrate at all and literally RAN to my car after it ended. Couldn't find it in the car and I drove all the way home to make sure it was there. Luckily, I had an hour's break before my next class. How insane is that?

Same goes for me and the internet. A couple of times when my ISP was undergoing maintenance and would be offline for a few hours, I totally experienced withdrawal symptoms.

Have we, or maybe it's just me, become TOO reliant on these new communication technologies? You might probably say yes, and I would agree, but what can I say... I love my mobile and my internet!